


Dreadful Summit

by mydogwatson



Series: Postcard Tales II [4]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Johnlock - Freeform, Life is funny, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-19
Updated: 2016-06-19
Packaged: 2018-07-16 01:45:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 813
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7247188
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mydogwatson/pseuds/mydogwatson
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John watches Sherlock and keeps a secret in his heart.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dreadful Summit

**Author's Note:**

> So thankful for the encouragement and kind words on this series. Hope you all continue to enjoy!
> 
>  
> 
> BTW, somehow the numbering on the series got messed up. Trying to fix it. This is actually part 4 not part 3. Part 3 was yesterday's story, Scootering.

It happened three times.

And John Watson remembered each one in sometimes exquisite and sometimes horrid detail. Sadly, he had no bloody Mind Palace to which he could consign such things.

The first time was on the night after they met, that crazy night when John saw the battlefield of Sherlock Holmes’ London first hand. And felt himself come alive again as he had not been since a bullet found him in Afghanistan 

On that night in London, the madman had abandoned him at a crime scene, after dragging him there for reasons that were still obscure. Lestrade was bemused, Donovan belittling, and Sherlock brilliant. Well, yes, brilliant when deducing the corpse of the pink lady; not so smart for running off on his own, leaving John feeling rather like an idiot. Not knowing what else to do, he started limping his way towards the main road in hopes of finding a cab that he could not really afford.

Something he could never name made him pause and then look upwards. What he saw froze him in place.

Sherlock Holmes, who would undoubtedly prove to be the worst flatmate in the history of shared accommodation, was standing on the roof of the building, apparently scanning the cityscape laid out before him. John’s immediate thought was that the man looked like some gothic hero. Or villain. Which, exactly, was yet to be discovered.

What was clear at that moment, perhaps more clear than anything had ever been before in his life, was that John had just fallen a little bit in love with Sherlock Holmes. Maybe more than a little bit and wasn’t that a turn-up?

He looked at this new fact, considered it, and then tucked it away. Kept it secret from the world and, perhaps even more importantly, from himself.

*

The next time it happened they were in Dartmoor on the hound case.

Sherlock had climbed to the top of the promontory for a better view of the landscape, while John remained down below, trying to use the map, but finding his attention divided. Again, he was rather struck dumb by the sight of Sherlock standing above him. Above the world, really, and the word that came into his mind on this occasion was ‘Byronic’. John was pretty certain that he had never before in his life used that word. But it fit perfectly here. As John gazed at the windswept figure standing so far above, he realised that the secret he had been keeping even from himself was still there inside. 

Standing there, holding the useless map and waiting for Sherlock to come back down to earth, John wondered if the day would ever arrive when it might be possible to say aloud what he was thinking and then decided, ruefully, that it probably never would.

And that was fine. He could tend the love where it was held inside his heart, keeping it as a precious secret, and be content with life.

*

The third and final time that John stood alone on the ground and looked up at Sherlock Holmes balanced on a ledge above him there was nothing romantically gothic about the moment. Nothing dangerously Byronic. It was only a moment of pure hell and John was helpless to do anything about it.

He tried. He begged and pleaded and would have done anything at all to stop what was happening. He looked at Sherlock standing on top of Barts, heard tears in that voice where he had never heard genuine tears before and he wanted to shout out the secret that had lived so long in his heart. He _would_ have shouted it out, but there was no more time and all he managed to get out past the lump in his throat was the name of the man he loved beyond all reason. The man who would never know how utterly beloved he was.

Sherlock plummeted to the earth and John watched helplessly.

*

But, as it happened, that was not the last time. Life was funny, wasn’t it?

It was years later, after so much more pain and so many more secrets than any two men should have to bear, when it happened again.

This time, John stood on the ground in Sussex, and watched Sherlock scramble up a path to the top of the grassy rise. Once there, he raised his hand to block the sun and scanned the area. Then he grinned down at John. “This is perfect, John!” he shouted down. “I know just the spot where the hives will flourish.”

Well, John was still of two minds about the whole keeping bees plan, but in the face of such joy in Sherlock’s voice all he could do was smile back.

Then he moved, finding his footing on the path, and started the climb up to where his husband was waiting impatiently for him.

**Author's Note:**

> Title From: Dreadful Summit by Stanley Ellin


End file.
